


An Unspeakable Choice

by meshkol (ashernorton)



Category: Marvel 616
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Betrayal, Blood and Violence, Character Death, Death Threats, Kidnapping, Kill or Die, M/M, Not Happy, Psychological Torture, Threats
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2019-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:11:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21977281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashernorton/pseuds/meshkol
Summary: When Tony and Steve are kidnapped after a mission goes wrong, they are given an unimaginable choice: the death of innocents, or the death of one ofthem.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 12
Kudos: 48
Collections: 2019 Captain America/Iron Man Holiday Exchange





	An Unspeakable Choice

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ghosthan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghosthan/gifts).

> For the Cap-Iron Man Holiday Exchange. Thanks for putting on this fest.
> 
> This is for CaughtAGhost, and I do hope that it's not a colossal disappointment. Happy holidays, darling, and thank you for the prompt(s). <3 Not gonna lie: I enjoyed filling this one, and boy do I enjoy these types of fics.
> 
> Note for readers: This fic has graphic depictions of death and somewhat graphic depictions of said individuals dying (not to mention threats against children as well as a villain that is getting off on all of the above). If any of this bothers you, please do not read. Thank you.

Tony’s eyes crack open, dry and crusted and heavy.

It takes him an obscenely long time to figure out where he is – and even then, it’s more of a _oh this is some sort of small and mental-hospital-esque cell somewhere_ rather than a no-shit location with geocoords and street signs for good measure – and even longer for him to realise that he’s not alone in said small and mental-hospital-esque cell somewhere. He can hear someone else breathing, slow and deep and calm, but he can’t quite muster up the energy to push up his prone, almost completely naked (_which what in the fuck_) body to look and besides, he’d recognise that breathing pattern anywhere.

Instead of focussing on Steve Rogers, who is really the most awkward person Tony could be trapped inside a cell with but simultaneously the best person too, he immediately goes inward to flip on Extremis only to find literally nothing, which spooks him more than waking up in a strange place does, for obvious reasons. He groans, lifts heavy arms up to rub at his eyes, and then figures it’s probably wiser to get up and take stock of his surroundings as soon as possible, even if that means that he’ll have to suffer the awkward and stilted (_bitter_) company of his ex.

He lifts himself up, takes stock of his sore but not really injured body (slightly dulled and sluggish, like he’d been drugged and thrown around a bit, which is pretty par for the course, really), and then avoids looking at Steve for just a little bit longer, thinking instead on how they got into this situation in the first place. The last thing he remembers is getting called in for a routine Avengers gig by Barnes and kicking some serious arse in the middle of NoHo, for some fucking reason or another. Steve hadn’t even been there, doing his S.H.I.E.L.D. thing somewhere else – namely, as far away from Tony as humanly possible, probably, even if Steve’ll never admit to it – so Tony’s frankly pretty baffled that he’s here in the first place, in some weird, brightly-lit prison cell made out of bulletproof glass.

Weird because there’s literally no furniture, not even a bucket to piss in or a drain in the floor.

Tony tries to access Extremis again, but it’s the same nothingness from before: the complete absence of any sort of signal he can ride for information, including satellite feeds that he could coast in his fucking sleep. The only explanation is a total dampening field, tech that only a few people could pull off without Tony being able to sense it and inevitably work his way into. Could be Hammer, he supposes, though more likely the Mandarin, but it’s...definitely different than their usual M.O. – generally speaking, the aforementioned like to be dramatic as fuck and don’t really like doing things on the downlow. Steve’s usual arch-nemeses are a little bit more subtle, but it’s still weird because generally the people who focus on Steve tend to hook him up to machines so they can extract the serum or steal his body or something. This whole set-up is out of left-field for both of their usual baddies, so either there’s been an evolution of M.O. à la Pokémon-style or someone else is gunning for them now, which, fuck, that’d be bad. There are quite enough supervillains gunning for them, in Tony’s opinion.

Tony blinks and finally turns to the solid, nearly-naked bulk of an unconscious Steve, who’s curled into a loose ball in the far corner of their box with his mouth slightly open as he breathes.

The sudden hit of emotions – deep regret and blistering anger and overwhelming love – is like a Skrull ship directly into the solar plexus, just like always, and Tony has to take a minute to catch his breath again, heart pounding painfully in his chest. Fuck, it doesn’t matter how long it’s been, or how much of Tony’s own memories he’d deleted during the wipe, because it still hurts just like it did in the days following his waking in Oklahoma, when he’d learnt what had happened, what they’d both done, especially with the knowledge that he’d stand by registration if he had to do it all again.

Steven Grant Rogers is the love on Tony’s life, always has been and always will be, and despite that, there is probably no one in the entire universe who Tony should _never_ be in a relationship with. They bring out the best and the worst in each other, sometimes in gentle waves of one or the other but often times in a large, unavoidable tsunami of both that has the ability to either save the world or destroy it.

He gets himself under control, buries the pain and anger and love as deep as he can manage it until the usual mask (that Steve will inevitably see right through) is in place, and then drags himself to the other side of the glass box, as far away from the slumbering, _beautiful_ super-soldier as possible. Then he glances up at the ceiling and shouts to whoever has to be listening, “Alright, so what the hell?”

Steve snaps awake at the first syllable with a jolt, his head smacking loudly against the glass with a dull ring of sound, kind of like a gong going off in the distance. Tony almost wants to laugh, except it’s really not that funny and he’s pretty sure that he’ll end up asking if Steve’s okay instead of laughing like he wants to and no, that’s not what either of them need to hear or say right now. All that matters is figuring out what’s going on and getting the hell out of here so they can go back to avoiding each other. There’s only so much disappointment and anger that Tony can stomach on Steve Rogers’ face before he sort of wants to drown himself in the Hudson, even though he wasn’t necessarily _wrong_.

Whoever has to be watching them like a fucking pervert doesn’t answer, and Tony frowns as he eyes the corners of their empty glass prison and then the room outside of it. It’s boring and bland outside of a truly massive flatscreen television and a flip phone on a table on the other side of the glass, almost like a warehouse, which rules out Arcade and probably Mojo, and no one is actively watching them with a hand down their pants, which rules out literally every other X-Men villain. The _Big_-Big Bads – pretty much every one of Strange’s villains, Thanos, blah-blah-blah – would’ve just offed them immediately after years of experience getting beaten by a conscious Captain America and/or Iron Man, because why open one’s self to that sort of inevitable pain when immediate murder is an option? Maybe the usual suspects would do something like this, but even so, the fact that no one is here monologuing _and_ Steve’s not hooked up to a machine makes everything confusing.

Tony doesn’t like confusion. He likes his chaos to be organised, thank you very fucking much.

“What’s going on?” Steve asks, and he sounds as out of it as Tony feels. _He’s been drugged too_, Tony can’t help but think, mostly because Steve can sleep anywhere but he definitely can’t sleep for long periods of time in a strange place, and he generally sleeps so lightly that he definitely would’ve noticed being dumped in a glass cage by some weirdo. Or weirdos plural, who the fuck knows. Besides, Tony recognises the feeling of sedation wearing off in his own body, so it’s impossible that they hadn’t drugged Steve too, albeit at a much higher dose.

Tony ignores Steve and calls out to whoever’s watching again, “Any point to this kinky little exercise? Or do I have to ask nicely while giving a strip-tease to entice some words from you?”

“Tony,” Steve groans with foggy exasperation, rubbing at his face while he pushes himself into a sitting position. Steve’s so massive that Tony can see his pale, gorgeous bulk shifting and bulging with his movements from the corner of his eye, and he resolutely does not look over to watch that familiar body with greedy eyes. Those days are over, and Tony has to live with that.

Easier said than done, he supposes.

“Well, we’re trapped inside of a glass box with no idea how we got here, so don’t ‘_Tony_’ me, Commander,” Tony snaps, even though he really just wants his mouth to shut up for once. The last thing they need is to get on each other’s arses when they should be swallowing the bitter awkwardness and working together to get out of here. Still, Tony’s uncomfortable as all hell now that Steve’s awake, and he’s never claimed to be a saint.

_Think on the bright side_, Tony thinks. _At least you don’t need to piss. _

“Tony,” Steve says again, this time sounding tired instead of exasperated, but it does seems like he’s waking up fully now. Regardless of how much drugs the assailant or assailants had shot Steve with, the serum is very good at flushing out toxins as an astronomically fast rate, so it makes sense, Tony supposes. They’ve probably only been inside the box for a short amount of time, which isn’t exactly a good thing – if they’d been in here for a while, there’d be more of a chance that a rescue party was about to blow through the walls. Then again, Steve’s probably Tony’s top pick for getting out of a pickle, other than himself. They’re both very good at getting out of nasty, potentially fatal situations on their own, and when they’re actively working together they’re practically unstoppable.

Tony ignores Steve’s tired plea and says irritably to the perverted wannabe supervillain, “Are you going to answer me, shithead? Or at least to tell me which corner of the mental patient cell you’d like me to take a piss?”

“_Tony_,” Steve says, and his voice is sharp now, full of that familiar irritation. Tony certainly hasn’t missed that tone, that’s for damn sure, and he really wants to get out of here. He just hates being reminded that Steve hates him now, because there’s not a lot on this planet that hurts as much as that.

The problem is that this whole thing isn’t _only_ Steve’s fault, and Tony knows that. They’d argued and bitched and complained and everything else imaginable over their decade-plus of being on the same team, but there’d been amazing moments too, more so than the bad ones actually. They’d been terrible for each other, no doubt about it, but they’d been _great_ together too, and everything had been...frankly amazing in the months leading up to SHRA. Sure, they’d fought and argued and bitched and all that stuff when they’d finally gotten their heads out of their arses and started dating, but that had practically been foreplay to the two of them because the sex had been _fantastic_.

But then SHRA had gone into law and everything else had gone to shit. Tony’s not stupid – he’d known that SHRA was faulty and absolutely unmanageable, hence the reason he’d opposed it early in its inception, but he’d _known_ what would happen if they’d all stiff-armed it, and he’d done what he had to do to stave off something worse. If Steve and the rest of them had just _listened_ and _compromised_ instead of going rogue and practically fucking the entire country over, SHRA would’ve been manageable and they would’ve been able to work _together_ to mould it to their specifications while placating the public.

Sixty fucking _kids_ had died, for God’s sake, and Tony loves Steve Rogers more than life, enough to give him the kill-switch to Extremis and trust him to do the right thing despite the fact that they’re no longer on speaking terms, but Tony thinks he’s the dumbest, blindest motherfucker he’s ever met too.

Not that Tony’s innocent by any fucking means, and Tony knows that with sharp certainty. SHRA had opened up the world to H.A.M.M.E.R. and Osborne, and led to Steve’s assassination, and led to Tony’s _everything_, which led to—

“Tony?”

Tony blinks and then looks over at Steve before he remembers that he probably shouldn’t look at all because _fuck_ he’s gorgeous. If Tony wasn’t so unnerved and nauseous about the situation, and Steve himself if he’s honest, he’d probably be hard as a rock from all that flawless muscle and skin on display, his modesty only covered by his usual briefs that he’s worn underneath his uniforms since the day he came out of the ice, which Tony intimately knows because—

He instantly pushes that thought out of his mind though and asks as evenly as he can manage, “What?”

“Can you sense anything?” Steve asks with the air of a man who’s asked that a few times already, and Tony takes a deep breath to steady his nerves and tremulous thoughts. No use rehashing the past anyway – Steve and Tony were together, then SHRA and assassinations and Norman Osborne happened, and now they’re not together which is fucking horrible and awkward and nauseating and somehow unsurprising all at once. Pretty simple, really.

“No,” he says flatly, and focusses on his apprehension to that particular fact rather than his discomfort about literally everything else. “First thing I tried, naturally, but there’s nothing there. Some sort of jammer on signal, maybe, or for all we know it all could be mechanical without wireless capabilities. I could get in but I’d have to get access to a port or wiring or...something, and I haven’t seen anything that even remotely resembles something electronic, and—”

“What about the armour?” Steve interrupts, which is both a fair question and kind of a blessing, because Steve’s fully aware of what Tony can do if he so much as sees something with a mechanical pulse so no use beating a dead horse about it.

Tony swallows the words that still want to fill the awkward silence and raises a hand, fingers flexing in mid-air while the armour bleeds out of his pores. Not for the first time, he marvels at how fucking pretty it is, and there’s a brief flare of arousal that flows through his chest to his thighs, half-covered in his standard, silky black briefs. The arousal itself is pretty par for the course, and he’s not really ashamed by it, but it is infinitely more discomfiting with Steve in the room. Only a year ago, he would’ve grinned and made some shameless quip about sex, positively gleeful when Steve flushed despite having over a decade of immunity to Tony’s childish innuendos and blatant come-ons; now, he curves his body inward, even though his soft prick hasn’t even twitched, and takes in the nanites with a forced nonchalance rather than his usual appreciation.

They both stare at Tony’s armoured hand for a second before their blue eyes meet, Tony feeling off-kilter and wrong in his own skin from making an attempt to quell his natural impulses. There’s a beat of _this is so weird and I would really like to leave this room immediately before I inevitably either beg for him to forgive me or start screaming at him for being a stubborn fool or just bury my face between his thighs and choke myself on his prick_ before it dissipates completely like a hot knife through butter. Suddenly, there’s nothing but the familiar ease as they read each other easily and sync up, like slipping into a well-worn, warm sweater, easy despite their heavy and bitter history, and it’s actually pretty comforting, being on the same page just like old times. It helps with the swirling emotions too, because he can focus on the next mission: getting the fuck out of here, preferably after beating the hell out of this pervert for putting them in this fucking situation in the first place.

With a slight smirk, Steve asks, “What do humans do best?”

“Poke things with sticks,” Tony answers cheerfully, then adds with an airy nonchalance, “and this is going to hurt like a bitch, isn’t it?”

“Probably,” Steve says evenly, and then immediately pushes himself up with smooth grace that belays the massive bulk of him, bracing his near-naked body as much as he can behind Tony while Tony lets the rest of his armour bleed out over his skin.

Then he powers up the repulsors and fires at the wall.

Tony’s modified brain registers that it’s unsuccessful and pushes his body to protect Steve before he even understands the connection himself, and there’s not enough time to really block the full blast as the repulsor energy ricochets off the glass walls and back towards them. They both go flying to the opposite side of the cell in a tumble of limbs and metal, and Tony’s subconscious thought to protect Steve first means that he’s moving without even being aware of it, taking the brunt of the impact as he twists his body around Steve’s serum-enhanced but ultimately unprotected body. Still, Tony’s not nearly as massive as Steve and it’s such a small space, so there’s not really a lot Tony can do to protect Steve, especially with so little warning; the pained rush of sound that rips from Steve’s throat when they hit the wall hard is just as painful as the physical impact.

It dissipates almost as quickly as it’d started, and Tony groans as he allows the armour to bleed back into his pores on his hands, fingers already moving to Steve’s familiar body to check breathing, pulse, temperature, and awkwardly angled body parts. All of it is fairly normal, other than the still-racing heartbeat, but it’s not really much of a consolation because Steve’s unconscious again, extremities burnt where Tony hadn’t been able to shield him and bruises beginning to blossom all over his naked, scorched skin. Mercifully, the only real problem that Tony can feel other than the burns themselves is a dislocated shoulder and a massive bump and cut on the back of his head, where he’d slammed it against Tony’s armoured hand as Tony’d cradled his skull protectively. The wound is already clotted, though blood cakes Tony’s bare hands and is streaked in Steve’s blond hair, so he’s not concerned about it despite the alarming amount of red, and he’s pretty sure that the likely concussion won’t be too problematic. The serum is remarkable, and not for the first time, Tony feels a rush of thankfulness that Steve’s capable of withstanding almost everything that’s thrown at him.

Almost.

Tony’s staring at the blood on his own fingers, smeared there after he’d prodded at Steve’s head wound, when he hears a disembodied and scrambled voice say “Pretty”, and Tony jolts out of his dark, unwelcome thoughts and into high alert immediately. His hands stall over Steve’s dislocated shoulder as the armour once again bleeds out, repulsors powering up with their usual mechanical whine despite how fucking useless it is, how completely _pointless_ it is.

“Who the fuck are you?” Tony demands, and instead of an answer, he feels like he’s been punched in the stomach by Galactus, because the flat screen outside their electronically-shielded glass prison flickers on, showing a room full of people, each individual adult or teenager holding a tiny child under the age of what looks like five-years-old at the very maximum. Half of them are crying, mostly the younger ones, though the expressions of fear and horror writ plain on all faces is universal, which doesn’t bode well, not at all. The ones not curled into an adult’s arms are all looking at the same location, not directly at a camera and giving the illusion that they’re looking straight at Tony, but instead just off-side, which means that they’re probably watching _Tony and Steve_ just like Tony’s watching them.

And there’s only one person not paired with a child, a young woman with strawberry-blonde hair with purple glasses and ink stains on her hands, her pale face eerily still, hazel eyes glazed because she knows, she fucking _knows_, she—fuck. _Fuck_. Tony’s incapable of breathing, his stomach lodged in his throat like a rock of pure molten metal, and his mutilated heart flutters in his chest because he knows where this is going, that it’s going to be bad and horrifying and he can’t take his eyes off that young woman with purple glasses and ink stains on her—

“When Captain America wakes,” the scrambled voice says, its voice echoing throughout the empty warehouse room through a speaker system that Tony simply _can’t fucking access with Extremis because of the shielding_, “there will only be one requirement for your release as well as the release of the innocents just beyond the room you're in.”

There’s a pause, Tony’s eyes wide and unblinking at the television as he watches the civilians flinch and cry and shudder in corners, some of them clutching at each other with stiff fingers as the voice continues in its metallic drone, though Tony can hear a twinge of something that almost could be excitement or even arousal, “If you do not complete this requirement for your release, the innocents will die, one at a time, one every thirty minutes. I will kill their children first, one by one, and then I will let you watch as their parents die of grief and dehydration before you succumb yourselves to the same fate in your impenetrable prison. If you do anything other than the requirement, such as break free or commit suicide, the room containing the innocents will blow, murdering all of the inhabitants inside.”

Tony swallows when the voice goes silent, nearly chokes on it, and counts the children. Forty-eight, which means twenty-four hours of death, and he can’t let that happen, he _can’t_, and he knows that Steve won’t let that happen either, no matter the cost. Tony swallows again, nausea and fear swirling in his stomach, and asks as calmly as he can manage, “What are your terms? What do we need to do?”

There’s a pause, a rasp of white noise that Tony knows for certain is a sigh of arousal, and the voice says breathily through the modulator, “One of you must die, and only at the hands of the other.”

There’s a flash, the television going stark white as the screaming starts, audible through the vents outside the prison, and when the visual comes back, all Tony can see is pale purple glasses, cracked and broken and splattered with blood, strawberry-blonde hair soaked with red, those hazel eyes still glazed but this time in death, the hole in her head deceptively small considering the amount of gore that’s sprayed along innocent children and their parents and the white wall behind them all.

“When he wakes up, you have thirty minutes before I kill the first innocent child just like I killed this innocent woman,” the voice says over the screaming and the sobbing, his scrambled voice high-pitched and out of breath.

Tony’s mind is nothing but white noise, fractured and disassociating because _no-no-no_, and he dips his head in between his knees in an attempt to breathe past the horror, the screams and sobs of almost a hundred people an echo of despair and fear in his ears.

* * *

Steve wakes up like he always does: fast but utterly still for a long moment as he reads his environment.

He has a brief moment of confusion that clangs around in his skull for a long second or two before he remembers the fight in SoHo and Iron Man going down and—Steve doesn’t like when Iron Man goes down in a fight, and it has everything to do with the fact that Steve loves him more than life itself, even if Tony drives Steve half insane on a day-to-day basis. They may not be on speaking terms at the moment, and Tony might hate him now because of everything that went down, and their ill-advised relationship had imploded spectacularly, but Steve still loves him, more than anything except his—

No. _No_. He’s not going there. He’s _not_, because the pain is too much, too _close_, and he’s so very afraid of himself when he lets himself think of it, afraid of what he’d _do_ if he dwells upon what could have been.

He forces himself to focus on his surroundings instead. He can hear Tony breathing, slow and carefully measured in that way he does when he’s trying to keep himself calm, which just tells Steve that he’s panicking. The smell of nervous sweat drives that home as well, not to mention that Steve can hear Tony’s heart thudding fast and sharp because of the small size of the cell. Part of him wants to push himself up and brush his fingers along that sharp jawbone until he sees the ice in Tony’s blue eyes melt, sees the tension bleed out of his weary shoulders, and then he wants to pull his long, familiar body close so there’s not even an atom of space separating them, an action that would soothe both of their nerves. The other half of him wants to pull away as far away as he can manage before he remembers how _angry_ he still is, how much he still _hurts_, from betrayal and abandonment and the emotional pain from losing Tony and his broken little family all the way to Sharon and—

Steve opens his eyes, swallowing everything that’s tight in his chest until his emotions are deep in his heart, and pushes himself into a sitting position until he’s looking at Tony, beautiful and dark and perfect and hateful, a man that’s both too good and too wrong for this world, a man who will always be more out of time than Steve himself, a man who should’ve been born a thousand years later and so far separated from Steve so they could both find peace.

“Thirty minutes,” Tony murmurs thickly, blue eyes flat and glazed as they bore into Steve’s, and Steve doesn’t even have the chance to ask what Tony’s going on about before a steady hand raises and points behind Steve. Steve feels a brief flash of concern because there’s something wrong here, but he trusts Tony enough to turn and look in the direction of Tony’s long index finger, and what he finds stops his heart.

There are families, _children_, in various states of terror and numbness, and there’s a body, female, with a shirt over her head (one of the men’s, clearly, as he’s bare-chested in a corner with a tiny baby in his arms). The red and black of dried blood and brain matter is stark against the white floors of whatever cell they’re in, and it’s clear that the woman hasn’t been moved since being shot, the adults in the room trying to keep as much space between it and the children as possible.

He hears Tony swallow, take a deep breath, and then explain in a smooth, pleasant voice, “Every thirty minutes, the freak who took all of us is going to kill one of those kids, two an hour, forty-eight total, and then he’s going to leave the adults in here to die of dehydration or, more likely, oxygen deprivation for at least us, since I haven’t been able to find a ventilation system in here, let alone anything that could call out to the Avengers or SHIELD or who-the-fuck-ever, so we _have_ to do what the freak says, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Not that that matters, because if we attempt to get out, their room blows. Hell, if we _commit suicide_, their room blows. Pretty nifty set-up, huh? We get to watch a hundred people die just like that girl did if we don’t do what we’re told, isn’t that lovely?”

The flare of pure anger takes Steve’s breath away because Tony’s flippant, almost amused tone is so disrespectful and horrible to the poor innocent civilians who’re trapped in a prison with a body, traumatised and afraid. He doesn’t understand what Tony’s angle is – Tony’s many things, but callous and crude over innocent people suffering isn’t one of those things. He swallows back the furious words that are thick in his throat and asks tightly, “What are they asking for? Do we have an ID? Are you _sure_ there’s no way to call out, Tony?”

“Nope, just the voice of Satan from the ceiling,” Tony says cheerfully, lips curving in a grin that’s more teeth than amusement, and Steve wants to hit him for a second before it suddenly registers that Tony’s putting on show, and Steve can’t for the life of him understand why. He needs to understand why Tony’s acting like this, why Tony’s being so lackadaisical and intentionally infuriating, because this _has_ to be intentional, there’s no other explanation. Tony might hate him now, but this is just cruel, and cruel is one thing Tony isn’t.

“Tony,” Steve starts, but Tony interrupts before Steve can even finish asking the question, the grin stretching so wide that it looks painful and a wild frenzy in those icy blue eyes: “We do know what he wants though. You ready for this, big guy? It’s a real doozy. One of us has to kill the other. We do that and Satan will let us all out. Isn’t that grand? Gave us all a good demonstration about how he wasn’t fucking around when he blew that girl’s brains out all over a bunch of screaming kiddos.”

Steve feels like he can’t breathe, only capable of looking at Tony, the love of his life and best friend and yet simultaneously the only hero he truly hates, and the solution as to why Tony’s acting the way he is crystallises in his head until it’s sharp and cutting, making his heart bleed.

“Stop,” he says in a whisper, and he sees Tony hesitate for a split second before his eyes are icy again, that horrible grin twisting his face and his bare hands clenched into fists. He seems so far away, somehow even farther away than he had during the conflict with registration, and it’s illogical and ridiculous but it still feels true in his head. Not for the first time, he wishes he could go back in time, go _home_, and not to 1945 – no, he wants to go back to the Mansion, when everything had been easier and kinder, before wars and death and losing the person he loved and everything else.

“What d’you think, Cap?” Tony asks, sharp and digging, his tone and lazy body language engineered to irritate Steve in the face of terrified civilians. Tony knows him so well and God, but Steve hates him. “Want to have a nice little debriefing session to come to a nice, democratic decision about who’s gonna die, or should we just start swinging? Normally I’d say your dick is hard for the American way, but honestly I don’t know what that even means anymore – is the American way democracy, or is it forcing your will on someone? I mean, you’re the master of the latter, aren’t you? Saying ‘_fuck you_!’ to what the populace wants and imposing your own will on them? American way indeed, baby. Maybe your dick is hard for both. Should we flip a coin? Oh wait, we’re fucking _naked_—”

“Tony, stop,” he begs, voice weak and Steve hates him, he _hates him_.

“—so I guess that’s out. No coins to pull out of pockets, not that my billion-dollar bank account comes with anything but a nice, shiny black credit card. Spare change is more for geriatric relics like you, I guess. Well, looks like we’ll just have to start swinging then, which I suppose is something we’re both good at. Tick-tock, Cap, we’ve only got about twenty-five minutes now, and fuck only knows that we’re long-winded when we’re trying to kill each other. Gotta make sure we hit the deadline, eh? No time to monologue or accuse me of bullshit as per usual while you conveniently ignore your own bullshit and how you’re a controlling, stubborn _bastard_.”

“Stop,” Steve says again, no volume at all this time, and there’s no anger now, only horror that makes him feel lightheaded and nauseous. He honestly thinks he’s going to vomit, and the only thing that he can think is _this isn’t real, it’s not, it’s wrong, it’s not real_.

Tony just steamrolls over him, his olive skin unnaturally pale and icy eyes wild as he rants, “Should be interesting because this time I won’t have to pull my punches in an attempt to minimise collateral damage, which is something that I’m sure has never registered to you—”

“That’s not true,” Steve rasps.

“—in your entire fucki—wait, don’t pull that bullshit, Rogers, you’re a fucking asshole and everyone who’s ever actually met you in your life knows that, you cruel and selfish son of a bitch,” Tony spits, his tone full of venom and disgust, and he’s so _pale_, sweat dotting his hairline and his hands shaking uncontrollably, probably not even aware that he’s doing it. Steve’s stomach rolls and he swallows down the bile in his throat, watching as Tony’s hands bleed with metal, so beautiful and lovely as it hardens around his hands. He can hear the whine of his repulsors even as Tony stands, his familiar and gorgeous body all long limbs and compact muscle stretched over scarred skin, and _fuck_, but Tony Stark is the most beautiful thing Steve Rogers has ever seen in his entire life.

Steve cannot live in a world that doesn’t have Tony in it. He can’t and he won’t. It’s a lot bigger than Steve too, because to be perfectly frank, the world _itself_ cannot survive without Tony in it. The world needs Tony’s protection, his inventions, his ideals, his unceasing hope to save them from the future – Steve’s an old, bitter, hard man now, who’s lost sight of what he was meant to be, and there’s nothing more that Steve brings except a relic of a brutal past of fascism and hate that humanity’s already carelessly forgotten, destined to repeat those same mistakes.

There’s only one solution here, and Steve isn’t afraid of it – he’s so very tired, and he’d die a thousand deaths if it meant keeping Tony breathing.

Steve stands up, slow and shaking himself, stomach still swirling with nausea as Tony continues to rant with deadly, sharp malice, “So what d’you think, Cap? Rock-paper-scissors or d’you want to start swinging? I’m game for either, and we’ve gotta get crackin’ because twenty minutes, you know, barely a blink of an eye, and fuck knows you’re going to spend fifteen of that lecturing me on why this is the best course of action. By all means, though, monologue all you want – gives me plenty of time to end this qui—”

Steve flashes forward, faster than Tony can react, and slams Tony against the glass wall of their prison. Steve can feel the sharp exhale against his collar bone, warm humidity against his bare skin, and he breaks out in gooseflesh because he remembers what that feels like against his neck, his ribs, the damp head of his hard prick, their sweat-slicked bodies hot and musky in between cool sheets, and _oh_ he misses him, even though they’re absolutely terrible for each other.

“Stop,” Steve says, his voice choked even to his own ears, and he is going to die here, at the hands of this magnificent and infuriating man, the only person he’s ever _truly_ wanted to spend the rest of his life with, so he can’t stop himself from letting his thumbs stroke the bare skin of Tony’s shoulders, relishing the dichotomy of warm, smooth skin with the rough cuts of scar tissue, minimal due to Extremis (and probably plastic surgery) but still noticeable to Steve’s sensitive fingertips.

“I know what you’re doing,” he says, darting his eyes around Tony’s face to memorise it. He wishes that his last memory of this face wasn’t in this situation – he’d love to see Tony smile one last time, one of those bright ones that made his eyes look like sapphires as they creased at the corners, eyelashes so long that they’d cast shadows on his cheeks in low light. “I know what you’re doing,” he repeats, quiet and very solemn, “and it’s not going to work, so don’t bother trying.”

He watches as Tony calculates and tries to work through parameters like he always does, as if life is so easily determined by mathematics and probability, and then lets his lips quirk in a small, joyless smile as Tony deflates against him. It’s clear that Tony’s aware he’s been sussed out, and the tension bleeds out of him as his eyes go flat, Tony clenching his eyes shut to hide it. “You stop,” Tony says, his voice rough. “It _has_ to work, Steve, it’s the only logical—”

“No it won’t and no it isn’t,” Steve says, and he just sounds soft, softer than he’s ever been with Tony, even when they’d been in bed with each other, cautiously hopeful that it could work, that they could make _them_ work.

“It has to,” Tony says, and his voice is so raw that Steve can’t help but wince.

“We need to talk about this, so the goading thing stops now,” Steve says, pulling Tony to the ground slowly and sighing internally with relief when Tony’s gauntlets bleed back into his pores, leaving those scarred, rough, elegant fingers on display instead. They sit on the floor – the same glass-like material as the walls, showing the stained and cracked concrete below and cold as hell – and are close enough to touch, though there’s a scant bit of space separating their knees.

Tony sighs heavily and rubs his face before he’s visibly steeling himself and saying flatly, “Okay, so it looks like we’re going the diplomatic approach. You want to start, or should I?”

Despite everything, Steve does trust Tony’s ability to figure out his environment and judge the options available honestly, especially when it comes to technical or mechanical aspects, but still, Steve _has_ to ask, “You’re sure that we have no other options?”

Tony sighs again and begins tapping his fingers against the RT absently. “Yes,” he says heavily. “You know I wouldn’t even think about doing what this psycho says if I wasn’t. And even _if_ I wasn’t, I wouldn’t want to chance it. He – I – you didn’t see it, Steve. She _knew_ she was going to die – there was no one else who didn’t have a kid, and he wanted to prove a point. He’s going to kill these kids starting in...twenty-something minutes.”

Steve wants to argue but Tony’s knees brush his when he shifts and says in a slow, careful tone, “We can delay it until the very end of the time limit but there’s no way to know if my internal clock with Extremis is meshing up with the freak’s, and we _can’t_ allow a child—Steve. _Steve_. I am _not_ worth a child’s life.”

Steve’s heart clenches with a small amount of confusion and an overwhelming flood of horrified fear, even though he shouldn’t really be surprised that Tony’s assumed that he’s the one who’s going to die. Tony’s never had a sense of self-preservation, after all, and Tony has always had a well-documented streak of self-sacrifice, same as Steve himself. “I think you’ve got that backwards, Tony,” he says, and clenches his jaw when Tony actually recoils, eyes wild and hands clenching into fists on his bare thighs. It’s fairly obvious that Tony hadn’t even _thought_ about that, immediately assuming that Tony himself was going to be on the chopping block (even though he still can’t believe that this is real, and he wants to wake up from this nightmare).

“That is the stupidest thing you’ve ever said,” Tony says through clenched teeth. “If push comes to shove, you’re killing me. It’s the only logical option between the two of us, by, like, a lot.”

“No,” Steve states, and his tone does not invite argument. He can’t make himself sound any different, cannot allow himself to project what he’s really feeling, because the only other response is breaking down completely and he can’t do that either.

“We have no _time_ for this Steve,” Tony starts, eyes wide and overly bright, not with tears but like he’s coming down with a fever.

“You’re the most celebrated innovator and engineer on the entire planet, regularly making lives better and more cost-effective despite how much corporate entities and governments try to force you to conform,” Steve says, steady and calm even though he can’t believe this is real. It just can’t be real. There has to be another option, _something_.

He continues, “You’re young with your whole life ahead of you, so—no, don’t interrupt me, I’m not done talking yet.” Tony grits his teeth visibly, the fluorescent lights outside of their cell glinting off them, but obeys, throat working around words that want to tear free. Steve waits for a second, then continues where he left off: “You’re young, and without even bringing Iron Man and the Avengers into it, your mind alone is helping people and saving lives, and if you think for one second that the world can afford to lose you when you’re doing so much for us, you’re out of your mind Tony. There’s no one else doing what you’re doing for the every day person in America and around the world, and we can’t lose you. We can’t. Besides, you’re one of the heavy-hitters protecting this planet – we need you a lot more than we need me, some relic who’s out of time and easily replaceable.”

“Easily replaceable?” Tony echoes, his voice a bit high-pitched with an emotion Steve can’t quite read. “You—wow, okay, that is the second stupidest thing you’ve ever said. You’re literally one-of-a-kind and a global hero, someone who regularly has to deal with people trying to replicate the serum so they can copy your abilities, whereas any punk with a suit can do what I do. My suit’s been reverse-engineered or operated by people who aren’t me so many times that the Avengers have a running bet on the corkboard about how many days it’ll be between the next baddie who turns out in a copy of my suit, you know that as well as I do because you did that stupid frowny face you’re doing _right now_ at the reminder of it. And as much as it pains me to say it, I am not the smartest person on this planet, let alone this galaxy, so that argument is invalid too. Besides, I am not going to be written down as the man who killed Captain America. Again.”

“You didn’t kill me, the Red Skull’s machinations did, and I wasn’t technically dead anyway,” Steve feels obliged to say, even though the reminder of that time of his life isn’t one he likes to remember. The dreams, the _memories_, and he’d woken up to the news that Sharon had lost— “Besides,” Steve says sharply before Tony can argue, making Tony flinch even though Steve’s tone is for himself, to keep himself from going down that road in his traitorous brain, “I’m not Captain America. Bucky is. I’m just running SHIELD, which is something that a lot of people have done before and therefore I’m, in fact, easily replaceable.”

“The world needs you, you idiot,” Tony says, hands shaking in his lap.

“The world needs you more, Shellhead,” Steve says quietly, and he’s shaking too.

Tony’s quiet for a long minute, and then he says, “Steve, I can’t do it, and even if I could, it would be long and painful and messy. You’re strong and resilient and insanely hard to kill, and I’d never be able to do it fast or painless or clean, and I’d look at you bleeding on the floor of this cell and I wouldn’t be able to finish it, you _know_ I wouldn’t. I don’t have it in me. You, on the other hand, have my off-switch or could kill me faster and easier than falling asleep. And anyway, it’d be easier and I _really_ can’t watch you die again, Steve, especially if it’s by my hand and _real_. If you insist on this, with God as my witness, I’ll make sure all the civilians are safe, then head back to Jersey so I can put a gun in my mouth and blow my brains out.”

Steve flinches violently, throat closing up and skin rippling with gooseflesh at the very idea of Tony killing himself.

Tony opens his mouth to continue making his case, but instead a metallic voice interrupts from external speakers, “Fifteen minutes remaining.”

Steve’s up and braced in a defensive position before the voice gets out the first syllable, and he can hear vague and distant screaming and crying from far away. A quick glance behind him shows the room of children and adults (_some of their clothes stained with blood, dear God, this monster is just that_) are the ones screaming, and they’re close enough that Steve and Tony both can hear them through the walls of this place. Not sound-proof, at least internally, then, though that doesn’t really help them now. He can also see the ridiculous amount of explosives that are surrounding the thin walls, and he’s seen and dealt with enough explosives to know that they’re real and active. Another quick glance around the open space outside the glass prison shows that there are copious amounts of explosives all around the facility they’re in, just as real and active, little green dots bright in the gloom of the warehouse.

“Fifteen minutes?!” Tony all but shrieks from behind Steve, and Steve’s ears ring from the sheer volume of his voice. “What the fuck, it’s only been seven minutes and you gave us thirty!” The voice doesn’t answer, and Tony lets out a sound that can only be described as a frantic bellow of rage, the almost-silent sound of nanites bleeding out once again before there’s a loud sound of metal hitting unbreakable glass-like material, vibrating in the walls as it absorbs the impact of Tony’s gauntleted fist.

Steve turns back to the television, eyes taking in the children who are sobbing against an adult’s chest or shoulder or side and the adults who are trying to comfort and soothe the little ones even though they’re panicking themselves. The dead woman’s body is in the centre of the room, unseeing eyes wide open against crooked, cracked glasses dotted with blood, and Steve suddenly realises that they really _are_ in a really bad situation with no viable solutions. Even if the Avengers show up and take out the individual or individuals in charge, it’s undoubtedly rigged to blow if anything interferes or if they don’t do what this psycho wants.

And he knows that Tony’s right in one way – Tony Stark doesn’t kill people in cold blood, with intention, and he barely ever kills even in battle. His suits have been hijacked and his mind’s been taken over, and he’s killed once or twice in self-defence, and he’s killed Skrulls and Kree and other aliens during invasions and attacks, but he’s never had the disposition for murder, and that’s what this is: murder. Unwilling, but murder nonetheless, and premeditated at that.

Steve, in direct contrast, has a lot of blood on his hands, and he’s _very good_ at putting it there. Still, it’s not that simple, not in the slightest, not at _all_, and he hears himself ask to the monster who’s done this, “What do you want? What can we give you to stop this madness? You want money? Fame? Did you get paid to do this? We can come to an agreement if you just name your price.”

“Steve,” Tony says quietly, his voice heavy, and he feels Tony at his back, close enough for his sensitive skin to feel his body heat even though they’re not touching. “I’ve already tried that. He won’t answer.”

“That’s not good enough,” Steve all but hisses. “It’s not _good enough_. What the _fuck_ do you want? The serum? I’ll give it all to you, you can _have_ it, _take_ it, just let us go you sonofabitch!” He hears Tony inhale sharply at both the vulgarity and the offer, but Steve’s not joking. If it keeps them all safe, if it keeps _Tony_ safe, he’ll do it without hesitating at all.

He has a brief, hysterical thought that he’s happy the Red Skull didn’t know that simply threatening to kill Tony would get him the serum without a fight, that Tony Stark has and always will be both Steve’s only weakness and his greatest strength.

When the voice doesn’t respond, everything goes slow and heavy as Steve finally, _finally_ lets it sink in that even if he’s offering the serum on a silver platter, something that _every_ villain would kill to get their hands on, they are not getting out of this. His eyes burn while his body shivers once, then twice, before he’s lifting his hands to press his palms against cold pseudo-glass, bowing his head so he can tear his eyes off the weeping civilians on the television screen.

“Why are you doing this?” he finally asks, his body numb and tongue thick in his mouth. “Why are you doing this to us?”

There’s a long, drawn-out moment of silence, and then the voice says in an obvious breathy voice despite the scrambling, “The only thing I want is to watch you both _suffer_.”

He’s not sure how long he stands there, chest filling with ice and heart pounding in his throat at that single phrase that’s dripping with hatred and arousal both, before there’s a press of heat against his shoulder, a warm and familiar hand. Steve follows Tony’s gentle prodding until he’s pressed against the glass along his back, Tony in front of him, hands warm against Steve’s biceps and his expression calm. “Hey, big guy,” Tony says, his voice light and soothing, looking so handsome that it takes Steve’s breath away. “It’s okay. It’s okay. We’re gonna be okay.”

“No, we’re not,” Steve rasps, his own hands coming up to grab Tony’s elbows.

Tony shivers, eyes flicking away for a moment before he seems to steel himself from whatever emotions he’s feeling. He looks back at Steve with that same half-smile, black hair falling into those icy eyes, and says again in a soft murmur, “It’s okay, Winghead.”

“It’s _not_,” Steve says, breathing choppy. He feels like he’s not getting oxygen, like his asthma is back and his ribs are broken and he’s been shot in the chest again; his entire chest hurts from pain, the emotional anguish radiating out until it’s a physical manifestation. “I _can’t_ kill you, I _can’t_. Don’t make me do this, Tony, _please_.”

“It’s okay,” Tony says for the third time, and Steve doesn’t understand why he looks so calm and at peace when he should be raging and screaming and full of fear. “I don’t have to watch you die again, Steve, and that is a gift,” Tony says, and the soft smile widens until it’s stretching his cheeks, his expression earnest. God, Tony’s not lying, and Steve wants to scream. “I hate that it has to be you – it’s not fair, and it’s cruel, but it’s what we got. This is a good way to go, saving people, and I’m not gonna lie, I’m happy it’s you, because you’ll take care of me and make sure I don’t suffer, which is the complete opposite of how I’ve always expected to go. This is good, and I can die knowing that I’m protecting people and that you get to live, and that’s a beautiful thing, darling,” he continues in a whisper, the old endearment like a knife through the chest, and Steve can’t help the agonised sound that rips out of his throat, hands clenching on Tony’s elbows.

“Tony, _please_,” he whispers, even though he knows the decision’s made.

“Hey,” Tony says, hands leaving his biceps until they’re wrapping around Steve’s wrists, Steve mimicking him automatically with his own hands so they’re linked. He looks so calm, relaxed even, his eyes intent and focussed and beautiful, and Steve loves him, loves him so fucking much that he could die from it, how it permeates every cell in his enhanced body and fills every thought in his mind. Tony says for the fourth time with a soft, reassuring grin, “I promise that it’s gonna be okay. We’re gonna be okay, you hear me?”

It’s a lie, because nothing’s ever going to be okay, Tony drives him insane but he can’t live in a world without him and Steve can’t—

Steve tears his hands away, cups Tony’s face in his large hands, and kisses him.

Tony jerks against him and his mouth opens around a sharp, sudden sob that digs into Steve’s heart, and tries weakly to push him away even as he returns the kiss, fingernails digging into Steve’s chest. “Don’t, _don’t_,” Tony begs in between kisses, and that steady calm and easy acceptance is gone completely now, exchanged for an anguish that echoes the agony in Steve’s entire body. His voice is a wet, bleeding sound when he pleads against Steve’s lips, “Don’t—Steve, _please_, you’ll make this harder—”

“I can’t,” Steve croaks.

“Five minutes remaining,” the voice says, and Tony _screams_, a raw explosion of noise that rings in Steve’s ears and makes his lips vibrate. Tony tries pulling away from Steve, then surges closer, then attempts to pull away again, conflicted and warring, and everything’s wet and hot and salty from tears and desperation and _he can’t do this he can’t he can’t lose tony it’ll kill him he can’t_—

“I’m so sorry,” Tony chokes out, fingers clenching in Steve’s hair and his body so warm and solid and _alive_ against Steve. “I’m _so_ sorry I hurt you.”

It doesn’t bring back their easy camaraderie or team dynamic, and it doesn’t erase the pain and betrayal, and it doesn’t bring back his unborn child (_that wasn’t tony’s fault, it was the skull’s, except it was wasn’t it he’s the reason you were on the capitol steps he’s the one who fought you_), but Steve accepts it if only to give Tony peace. “I’m sorry too,” Steve says, and he aches as his hands slip to his neck, feeling Tony’s racing pulse against his palms, the rasp of his stubble, the warmth of his skin.

So very fragile, so easily broken.

The last sixty seconds begins, too fast, too _fast_, and Tony’s tearing at his Steve’s hair, begging him to do it even as he tries to press every millimetre of skin against Steve’s body, as if he’s trying to fuse them together from mouth to feet, and Steve knows he has to do it before the thirty second mark, because Tony told him that the kill-switch took approximately twenty seconds for his physical body to shut down even though his brain would be dead instantly, allowing him to feel no pain or fear. The verbal command to trigger the kill-switch – bizarre, strange, something that no one would say in passing, completely safe – is lodged in Steve’s throat, unyielding and thick, and every iota of his mind is screaming, shaking, heaving, in complete denial and he can’t—

“I love you,” Steve whispers against damp, swollen lips, and swallows Tony’s sob before he croaks through a tight throat, “_Aardvark engage gold parkway_.”

It’s instant, Tony immediately unresponsive to Steve’s frantic kiss, but it’s not that easy, and Steve feels Tony’s brain-dead body start to convulse, hot liquid beginning to seep in between Steve’s fingers around Tony’s neck. He’s forced to pull away when Tony’s seizure gets too violent, both of them falling down to the hard floor in a pile of limbs.

Steve watches with wide, aching eyes as Tony’s body dies, blood dripping out of his ears and nose and mouth, blue eyes glassy and bulging, his skin beginning to line with black as Extremis rapidly destroys his organs and brain. It’s the worst thing he’s ever seen with his own eyes, and even though he knows Tony can’t feel it, that his neural processes are deleted and switched off, that Tony’s _dead_, Tony’s body still jerks and shudders and gurgles on blood and tissue.

Steve feels like he’s been betrayed as he watches the love of his life get liquified inside, and there’s a brief flare of pure _hatred_ towards Tony because he’d said that it would be easy – yeah, easy for _Tony_, but Steve will never forget this nightmare, never forget the blood on his hands and across bruising olive skin, never forget the stench of blood and piss and vomit and Steve _hates_ Tony for making him watch this, when he could’ve just snapped Tony’s neck and been done with it.

There’s no countdown now, no sound except for Tony’s body dying and Steve sucking in shallow, painful breaths as he forces himself to watch. His own heartbeat is slowing in tandem with Tony’s weakening convulsions, his entire body feeling numb and deadened, and when Tony’s finally still, bloody and blackened, bruised blue eyes staring lifelessly at the ceiling and mouth slightly parted around that last, crackling exhale, the deafening silence is interrupted with a thick, scrambled moan of release through the speaker systems.

Steve’s brain tears itself apart, disassociating completely, and he presses himself against Tony’s still-warm corpse, unable to move and praying for death to let him follow Tony away from this nightmare.


End file.
